


The Basement

by nigellecter



Series: Fire & Brimstone Arc [3]
Category: Charlie Countryman (2013), Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Comfort/Angst, Cop!Nigel, Hannibal is Hannibal, Incest, M/M, Twincest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-16 00:06:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7244284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nigellecter/pseuds/nigellecter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He should’ve been the one lying on that fucking hospital cot.</p><p>The weight of this particular case is still upon his shoulders like Atlas holding up the world, Nigel’s own bandaged up torso effectively hides myriads of scrapes and gashes he had obtained through the rough physical entanglement of a fight before he had retaliated and reciprocated a gunshot to the man’s torso. At least that had him to lose copious amount of blood and now, that precious blood had been wasted upon as the man settled into a deep oblivion, life fluid transfused into him as most of his squad waited until he becomes conscious.  </p><p>All the marred and distorted reality of the situation stirs the vast meadow-like unperturbed state of his subconscious, brewing into a formidable maelstrom with each second passing. He wishes to be unplugged from the world, where the illumination and its respective pitch-black coexists like water and oil.  </p><p>Private Investigator-turned Homicide detective Nigel and Hannibal, offering profile of a highly dangerous serial killer on loose goes to investigate a building together. Things ensue and their bond strengthens even tighter than before. </p><p>Unbeta'ed. Mistakes are my own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

With his gaze hollower than a set of bone-dry whiskey bottle tipped over along with the dust settled to the bottom along with sunken set of hazel, the livid blackness drips under his eyes like a widening slant of a shadow reflected upon the windowsill. Instead of having his senses stolen away in mindless bliss, the desolation takes over as the bleak whiteness surrounds the ambiance along with an unmistakable scents of antiseptic. Nigel’s all too familiar with the grim reality of echoed moans and guttural groans seep from the walls. 

 

His own fluttering flesh, still contained within the filmy layer of sweat and recently changed fluff of bandages, the gnarled stretch of flesh upon nevertheless unblemished and unscarred torso seems to breath with its own life. With a languid blink and the warmth from his palm grazing over almost imperceptibly slouched form, the mindless graze upon Hannibal’s limp extension of his veined arm continues. As if that soothing gesture had been serving as an emollient to his still affected physicality.

 

The atmosphere remains dead quiet, yet, Nigel hears the empty slashings and swishing of the glinting blade, repeatedly reeling with the projectile of blood splatter still etched to the creases of his brain. To everyone’s flabbergasted spectacle, Nigel had insisted he see the crime scene photos with his very eyes. He wasn’t most people, as his own damn skin bore more scars along the expanse of his skin. Even more uncharted as the turn of his profession also entitled him with the appurtenances of bloodshed and gory, wretched human nature. As if the shutdown button had malfunctioned altogether within his subconscious, it’s as if he’s plucked out of this wretched place, to be hurtled underneath the prison roof of dense wood - not a single, smallest patch of sky visible, every inch of the cloudless night sky seeped with pitch-black darkness.  

 

His too restless mind simply refuses to shut off as cacophonous aria orchestrates within his skull. His blood feels colder than the arctic chill brewing over the course of months as the coldness seeps into every follicle of his skin. His gaze hovers on Hannibal’s torso and sees exact locations of all those jagged lacerations underneath, even when it had been completely covered and stitched up.  

 

Uncharacteristically aghast, lips ajar with widened pupils vacantly gazing into the dank staircases down under into the consuming darkness, he had only traced Hannibal’s lunging movements, as his twin beelined for the assailant without a single breath of hesitation. 

 

_ He should’ve been the one lying on that fucking hospital cot. _

 

If worse, he should’ve still be on the operating table, plucking out shattered remnants of glass and bullet fragments. Perhaps pronounced dead as the vital machine drew a continuous, cacophonous beep as the light within himself extinguishes with the passage of time. 

 

The weight of this particular case is still upon his shoulders like Atlas holding up the world, Nigel’s own bandaged up torso effectively hides myriads of scrapes and gashes he had obtained through the rough physical entanglement of a fight before he had retaliated and reciprocated a gunshot to the man’s torso. At least that had him to lose copious amount of blood and now, that precious blood had been wasted upon as the man settled into a deep oblivion, life fluid transfused into him as most of his squad waited until he becomes conscious.  

 

All the marred and distorted reality of the situation stirs the vast meadow-like unperturbed state of his subconscious, brewing into a formidable maelstrom with each second passing. He wishes to be unplugged from the world, where the illumination and its respective pitch-black coexists like water and oil.  

 

_ And he should’ve put a bullet right through that fucker’s skull and have him never see the light of things.  _

 

If it wasn’t for evidence and all that proceedings that needed to follow, he would’ve sought to that fucker’s demise in person. He had seen it all, and he could even scent the wretched cadaver-like putrefying animosity exuding upon his assailant like miasma. His previous life as a vicious and notorious criminal followed with great reprimand of crossing the other side of the law - as he trespassed, snooped around the blind spots of the CCTV, sneaking around with his shiny glorious badge attached to the holster. Everything had been simple then, all he had to do was to maintain the good relationship with the doctor he frequented, not get into enough of a trouble to have the bullets plucked out of his viscera and be fucking lucky, because he had seen too many who would see the last sliver of the daylight and be end up in the gutter, the bottom of the ocean. If one had been extremely fortuitous, then perhaps a morgue. 

 

Just below the rim of the night sky as he had crossed the fence, warning him of the scrutiny of the danger he will face if he ever did, he finally comes across a widening splash of yellow light upon the distance. He stands upon the unperturbed ocean as his clothes dampened with a even layer of sweat, his gleaming and twinkling center of his eyes fixate upon the lighthouse which he focuses on. A great mass of stars had been wheeling around his head beyond the cocooned packing, only inaudible rustle of the leaves and his thumping heart convey both the petrification and glorious feeling of excitement. The silence deep as death itself. 

 

Not on duty, but he wanted to get the breaking recognition all to himself. He needed to hoard the praise to advance in his career as it had been his single goal when he had been better known as the ‘Gutter King.’ Still, he didn’t have a single remorse about carrying this on without anyone’s helping hand or backup for that matter. He was well capable of planting bullets through anyone who crossed him the wrong way. He didn’t mind his gossamer of silk Armani soiled with splatters of brain and blood either. 

 

His long, lengthened strides stall as the light extends towards him like an extending arm. Dazzled and blinded, Nigel shields his eyes with his left hand, the right one still curled firmly against the grip of the revolver. 

 

With a swift whoosh graze past by him and that’s all he registers. A few short seconds later, his whole left side permeates with thick crimson as the deluge immediately pours down through the fibers of his shirt. With a gasp of an exhale, his whole frame shudders as a frightful sense of doom looms over. He only perceives a shadowy figure, leaving a trail of similar scent he was so familiar with. A predatory  killer who was perhaps a notch above his skills. After all, he had a tendency to delve into the case when he was assigned one. Such as this particular one. 

 

Even before the perpetrator leaves him alone in ghastly silencing agony, he knows. That’s the fucking motherfucker who had abducted and killed women in their prime. Heaving breaths as the ebb and flow of his heart lodges against his throat as his whole body shudders with flaring heat, his eyelids grow heavy as he sinks onto the earth as if his corporeality had simply vanished. With trembling fingers, the last recollection of that very night about three months ago concludes with a call to 911. As his own fleeting voice, trailing further away from him as does his own consciousness.

 

As he pulls himself away from that haunting constriction of a memory, an unchecked fury blazes over every pore of his body and melts away that frozenness. Nigel had even thought of setting that merciless serial killer loose just for him to have tear countless fucking holes until there was nothing left of him to identify him. It would be only bits of brain matter, sinews and viscera they’d find, along with fragmented bone shards and organs dried up like prunes.  

 

A kind of electricity seems to gether inside his sunken orbs as a sense of powerlessness brewed inside him; it could be infliction, punishment and torturous pain, or better, despair and unhappiness. Enraptured as his safety valve refuses to screw shut, blinded and caught up in both inescapable sight of blood still clinging onto his skin like dust and ashes, the thing that prevents him from going around the bend is devising and attempting to dish out those splendid vendetta which he would exert soon when the perpetrator would be disposed of. He was rather remarkably exceptional with mirroring Hannibal’s kills, now that he learned the crafty skills of puncturing the flesh without causing a spillage of viscera and putrid scents of still undigested food clogging up the stomach and intestines. 

 

_ Warmth that is almost tangible radiates from his facade as he shuts his worked-up mind for once.  _

 

And he lets his mind reel without any break, his body still remembers the flaring frustration, exhilaration and turmoil of a rampant fury even more devastating than a stampede. The hoofbeat of a clattering chariot amplifies as his entwined fingers clasp with Hannibal’s even more tighter. The nurse had walked in some time ago to change the IV fluids, monitor Hannibal’s vitals and change his own bandages as he had attained more scarring within the past half an year than he had in his ex-criminal days - it could be half an hour ago, a few hours ago, who knows. The curtained private room remains deathly quiet in the midst of the night. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first chapter is heavily edited - I didn't like it. I might do the same with this particular chapter (I find it to be all over the place), but wanted to get this out and advance the story.

(36 hours ago)

 

While Nigel had always preferred the two-wheeled vehicle made for sheer speed, this time, he had to say a brief farewell to his crotch rocket in order to blend in with a group of black sedans and police officers dispatched to block off any unadmitted personals and tabloid journalists from transgressing the law some distance away. In truth, along with a copious puddle of blood ominously gleaming underneath him as Nigel had been transported away, Nigel’s assailant had left a streak of grease just under the armpit of Nigel’s leather jacket along with an imprinted partial fingerprint. The analysis result had been quick to pinpoint and match the location where a decomposed and severed body of a twenty-three-year-old woman had been found near the downstream of the hillslope. Both twins had been informed and summoned to the grounds where dense wood, packed like countless needles that one of the most notoriously brutal and sadistic killers (next to the Ripper, although Nigel had never considered Hannibal’s kills ‘brutal,’ or ‘sadistic’) had been sighted around the vicinity. 

 

The stretch of land where he had loomed around like a lone wolf in search for his competent equal. Nigel was forced to make a veritable excuse in his head as he refused to make-believe the expected fate of one of the extension of his own body, because that very Ducati he had driven in attempt to find more evidence (and he definitely did on the article of his clothing; the assailant’s DNA which had served as the lead up to this point, a possible reprehension of the suspect) had been found completely wrecked in pieces nearby downstream where the twins were heading now in police patrol car.

 

With its vehement 150 horsepower and the supremacy of carbon fiber carapace stripped bare and completely unrecognizable as its glorious form prior to reducing down to being a heap of rusted wreckage. Hannibal had been more than capable of replacing materialistic luxuries without even making a dent in his check balance. It would be delivered in front of their mansion by the daybreak tomorrow. Nigel didn’t know this yet, Hannibal just knew that even without hearing the whole briefing from the younger twin’s lips, he knew something was up. The brooding silence, Nigel’s exuding aura and his strikingly different posture he carried was inevitable that something was up. Then, there came the irrefutable evidence from one of the case files, containing the charred heap of metal, none of the grandeur present in the intricate workings of what used to be a vehement vehicle. 

 

Unconsciously and within his subconscious, Hannibal can feel his lips quirk up in a distinctive smirk. That expression when he’s about to do something devious, up to no good as he devised a plan that would set him apart from expectant steps. 

 

_ Mischief managed, along with something entirely else he had came across that he was sure Nigel would go berserk for.  _

 

Through their erratic schedule, nights weaving into days and the blurred line between twilight and daybreak obscures even further with each passing day, with Hannibal’s usual sessions pushed to afternoons and late evenings with the morning cleared off to be with his brother, Nigel would often bury himself onto his laptop and various manila folders, containing documents, evidences in the clear plastic bags and photos as he worked diligently through the night. Hannibal, of course, had seen it all and worked hand-to-hand with his brother, offering his own expertise and pointing Nigel in the right direction. 

 

Many nights, the dimmed atmosphere of their study filled with rhythmic rustle of compiled files and typing on the computer and graphite pressing into the fiber of Hannibal’s sketchpad, sketching away as the wondrous image of Parisian years became as clear as a daylight. The familiar fatigue, taking on a cloying molasses-like assault upon Hannibal’s nostrils, he would make some quick croquis of his brother’s slow descent upon the mahogany desk as until his nodding head finally came in contact with the files in a soft thunk. 

 

Hannibal wanted Nigel to come across the killer even before the law enforcement ever got their deserved chance. His own heartbeat rarely spiked over eighty-five, even when he watched the pupils dilate and bulge in shock, as the brimming effervescence of life slowly drained as he had dipped his hand into the man’s viscera. Nigel had been governed with emotions, with his own stubborn set of rules, with inefficient tool for bringing justice. 

 

The thrumming discharge of bundles of nerves, tightened with the exquisite expectation of both bloodlust as a hint of sneer etches beneath his nose and a smirk quirking his thinned lips upward, the withdrawn vacant gaze, unempathetic as the worthless heap of a body kisses the very earth they will return to for the last time. The power to take life always had reciprocated with him being on the receiving end, but as much as the last thing he wanted was to have the rich iron-fueled tang of Nigel’s blood permeate through the walls of their Baltimore habitat. Yet, his extension of manipulation ended there, with Nigel’s ramshackling sense of violent maelstrom had no prospect to be tamed.  

 

With the state-of-the-art equipments at the back of the van, his homicide team had finally pinpointed the exact location of the killer’s whereabouts. The exact spread of light Nigel had seen, as the kerosene lamp burned, the heavy column of noxious ectoplasm rising, emitting the derelict scent of hollowed bones and succulent meat, almost gamey, piny and oaky. All the amalgamation coalescing into the unperturbed silence of night air, 

 

It all reminds him of his dingy Bucharest flat on the fifth floor of a walk-up - the ambiance, the size, even the exuding stench of lingering scent of blood, seeped into the pores of the walls and the furniture alike. Although this bastard had decided to bury himself beneath the earth as a scum he truly had been. With his skewed ethics and morality, he never killed children and women. The weakest of human beings, who should have been offered protection. He killed without remorse and consideration for those facts. 

 

He had seen the pictures and had heard a profiler brief the guy’s profile and for once, he had to repress the bitter bile brimming over his throat and turn away. When he had finally came to face the wretched sight of seeping blood, redder than the rampant foliage of the mountainside and the putrid scent rancid than the massacre inside the pig pen. 

 

It was evident that he had a working anatomical knowledge, perhaps not as pedantic and nonpareil as Hannibal, but he lacked refinement. Nigel’s own kill had been astutely honing to a fine craft and even before then, the rudimentary savageness and the vestigial nature of ursaring this man seem to possess was incongruous to Nigel’s behavior.   

 

_ Josh Harriot, the man in his late thirties, with heavy build, six feet two inches with cropped hair and a bit of stubble. Rugged appearance, subdued clothes. Extensive knowledge of knives and firearms. An ex-army.  Abandoned and sexually assaulted by his mother, his father had simply neglected him in entirety. _

 

The last bit would make anyone to be fully alerted - apparently Nigel was an extraordinary human being who enjoyed both his intuition and his honed skills as a ex-criminal and formidable marksman. And the fact that the man absolutely resented and held total contempt with the women, it wasn’t a surprise that the man had relished himself to tear through all the woman's reproductive organs and make a contemptible displayment alongside the flayed body, full of crude slashes, effectively hiding the duplicity of intricateness of the organ harvesting. 

 

Nigel could literally taste the arsenic coursing through his system, liquidating every single atom of his body until he disintegrates. Of course, he had only handful of tight-knitted partners who he worked with and those knew his previous backgrounds of running a considerably thriving criminal empire. Those confidants and associates would have been the ones who he would go to the ends for, but to him, cutting off connections had been as easy as pie - it’s as if they didn’t belong in the recollections of his mind as he had partaken the opposite spectrum of professionalism. Not even an infinitesimal strand, or a phantasm of an image of him in that particular ambiance would be present. 

 

With a blade and fully loaded revolver strapped onto the holster underneath his jacket with the shining badge gleaming against the high overhead afternoon light. Hannibal is beside him in passenger seat, pensively observing the surroundings - densely packed woods, the quiet serenity of the considerably sized cabin just perched, encompassed by the thick sun-baked earth, completely parched dry under their feet. Their evenly sun-richened skin radiates with a constant tinge of light terra-cotta undertone as the tire glides against the frozen ground, offering a slippery icing against the sun-baked parchness of unusually dry season. 

 

They remain silent, and Nigel silently thanks the absence of distraction - the radio turned off, Hannibal’s enthusiasm towards how the law enforcement thrives and goes about in a situation like this. Not even daring to make a single noise, even his exhale, he hears the rumbling of his heart as it pushes snugly against the ribcages. The twinkling center of Hannibal’s maroon, the lighter part of the pupil brims with gleaming curiosity as the corner of his lips quirk up. 

 

The bridge of Nigel’s nose slightly pinches, his jaw tucked in, determined lips thinned as the rotation of tire slows for him to perceive minute dibs and bumps of the unpaved tracks. 

 

_ He never lets his nerve get the best of him, yet, he cannot get rid of the looming spread of bodement from occupying his brain.  _

 

“Do you have your gun? Fully loaded, the hammer cocked,” Nigel’s weariness rubs off upon the drawl of his words, mimicking the very dusty, flaky trail they create behind beneath them. Hannibal had never preferred this brand of weapon. It lacked intimacy and proximity. Since lending a helping hand and serving as one of the profilers, he couldn’t not see why his brother had been tight bundle of flaring frustration and being an uncharacteristically worrywort. 

 

“You’re still perturbed the fact that this particular killer doesn’t repulse in killing women nor have a remorse in splaying the carcass open like he would an animal.” Hannibal accesses, his darkened maroon resting upon Nigel’s profile. 

  
“You’ve seen those photos.” You know it’s not just the amount of spillage or the mere displacement of it. He has seen more copiousness, raw animalistic mess of a bloodthirsty beast. It’s as if this particular killer had been a mashup of all the worst things in themselves. Nigel with his non-functioning valve that prevented him from letting loose. That tumultuous, gleaming fury of molten lava destroying everything in its path. Alongside, he had Hannibal’s seraphic calm, unreal, etherealness that was totally away from the earth as blazing walls of blood splatters in heavy arch. 


End file.
